rather see my daughter in her shroud than in a wedding-dress for
you."

Dumont left without speaking or looking up.

"The old fox!" he said to himself. "Spying on me--what an
idiot I was not to look out for that. The narrow old fool! He
doesn't know what `man of the world' means. But I'll marry her
in spite of him. I'll let nobody cheat me out of what I want,
what belongs to me."

A few nights afterward he went to a dance at Braddock's, hunted
out Pauline and seated himself beside her. In a year he had not
been so near her, though they had seen each other every few days
and he had written her many letters which she had read, had
treasured, but had been held from answering by her sense of
honor, unless her looks whenever their eyes met could be called
answers.

"You mustn't, Jack," she said, her breath coming fast, her eyes
fever-bright. "Father has forbidden me--and it'll only make him
the harder."

"You, too, Polly? Well, then, I don't care what becomes of
me."

He looked so desperate that she was frightened.

"It isn't that, Jack--you KNOW it isn't that."